For the past 14 years, Eve Adams has worked part-time while raising her two children and emotionally supporting her sculptor husband, Eric, through his early fame and success. Now, at forty-two, she suddenly finds herself with a growing career of her own—even as Eric’s career sinks deeper into the slump it slipped into a few years ago.After a dinner at a local restaurant to celebrate Eve’s success, Eric drives the babysitter home and, simply, doesn’t come back. Eve must now shift the family in possibly irreparable ways, forcing her to realize that competence in one area of life doesn’t always keep things from unraveling in another.

Tara and Sky share a mother, but aside from that they seem to differ in almost every way. When a series of tragedies strikes, they must somehow come together in the face of heartbreak, dashed hopes, and demons of the past. The journey they embark on forces each woman to take a walk in the other’s shoes and examine what sisterhood really means to them. It’s a long road to understanding, and everyone who knows them hopes these two sisters can find a way back to each other.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

It's the beginning of Spring Break week here in Alabama, and my family is heading down to the Gulf Coast. In celebration of warmer weather and beach trips, I'm offering up my annual summer preview, featuring five of my favorite novelists. These ladies consistently deliver fun, "beachy" reads.

Bea, Kate and Ellen have always known that they can depend on each other no matter what. But when Ellen, a widow who has devoted herself to her children and her art gallery for the last ten years, falls head over heels in love with Oliver, the long-term bonds of these three friends is put to the test. Bea and Kate are driven away from their friend and from each other as they react differently to this unfamiliar stranger in their midst. What Women Want is a novel about love and life and the challenges of female friendship that face women as they try to decide what they want—and come to realize what they really need.

Monday, March 12, 2012

I featured THE UNDERSIDE OF JOY as a "Waiting on Wednesday" pick last September. When the author contacted me to show her appreciation, I asked if she'd be interested in participating in this feature on my blog upon publication. She graciously agreed.

Quotables is an event in which I present authors with a meaningful (to me) passage from their books and ask them to speak to it in whatever way they wish.

This novel explores an unusual relationship between a mother and a stepmother, each laying claim to the children after the father unexpectedly dies in an accident. Right when I read this quote, I knew it was "the one."

"Invisible walls. The illusion of light and space and even air. The kind you can't see, that are as fragile as glass. They work great until an unseen force pushes you into one and the illusion shatters, so that every step you take cuts you, cuts those who walk alongside you."

This line comes at a point when Ella is realizing some things about herself and her relationship with Joe. I didn’t work hard on this particular passage, Ella just gave it to me. But soon I could see that it fit into the themes of the story. Without giving away the plot, I will say that this image is also very closely related to the idea of the underside of joy. When we don’t acknowledge the darker side of our lives—the sorrow, the hurt, the loneliness, the loss, take your pick—those feelings often start to rise up, or in this case, push back on the illusions we’ve created of light-filled, perfect happiness. And suddenly we’re walking on glass. And so are those we love. But the only way through it is through the pain.

The good news is that this is not a total downer! There’s no such thing as perfect happiness. That’s okay. Life has its brilliant shining moments, and underneath, we can also feel the sorrow that comes from living life, from experiencing life’s heartbreaks. That’s what makes the joy all the sweeter.

The publisher has offered a copy of this novel for me to give away. Just leave a comment below by Monday, March 26 at 11 p.m. CST, and I'll randomly pick a winner. Be sure to fill out the email portion of your comment form, so it won't be visible to others, but I will have a way to contact you.

Gemma Craig has spent her career as a private chef taking care of other people. From Lex, the fussy department store owner straight out of a movie from the thirties; to grossly overweight Willa, who must radically change her eating habits or die; to the strange Oleksei family, with a constant parade of mysterious people coming and going; to the hideously demanding Angela who is “allergic to everything” and foists her tastes on her hapless family; to the man Gemma thinks of only as “Mr. Tuesday” because they’ve never met. Everyone relies on Gemma, even while she goes home alone each night and feasts on cereal and quick meals. But when life takes an unexpected turn on a road Gemma always thought was straight and narrow, she must face her past and learn to move on in ways she never imagined.